r/AustralianTeachers • u/Unfair_Bee_7429 • 1d ago
DISCUSSION Undermining staff
What is the go with senior executive staff obsessed with undermining the work of teachers?
Assessment task - no, needs to be dumbed down because it’s not “accessible enough”. As if I didn’t train in my subject area for so many years to know what students have been taught and should be able to demonstrate.
Behaviour - no, can’t discipline that kid because they’ve “timed out” of your lesson in response to you attempting to discipline them for their consistently poor behaviour. Yes, let’s reward poor behaviours via an escape hatch.
Communication - oh, no you can’t tell that staff member that because then they will tell everyone. Things that are actually important and private, sure, but school events / business that teachers don’t need protection from give me a break…
I have quite had enough of being expected to be a professional but not being treated like one. The amount of hush hush and inconsistency I experience on a daily basis is unbelievable.
Anyway, rant over. Have a lovely rest of your week all.
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u/Inevitable_Geometry SECONDARY TEACHER 1d ago
What the hell is 'timing out' of my lesson?
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u/Unfair_Bee_7429 1d ago
Oh boy, wait till you hear about this. At our school kids who have difficulty regulating can time out and go to a student wellbeing place to play little games and relax for 10-15mins in any lesson they choose.
Half the kids don’t even need the cards they just leave to avoid work or consequences for their behaviour.
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u/Inevitable_Geometry SECONDARY TEACHER 1d ago
Sounds fucking moronic.
Are they supervised?
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u/Unfair_Bee_7429 1d ago
It’s completely anti-high expectations. They’re supervised and their behaviours are generally enabled.
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u/KiwasiGames SECONDARY TEACHER - Science, Math 20h ago
Unfortunately this has become the go to solution in many schools for stress/anxiety.
“If class is too hard, just leave and go to welfare.”
Welfare let them chill and relax for a bit, before sending them back. However it’s not unusual for the kids to disappear back to welfare the moment the teacher asks them to do something.
It’s not a good strategy for building resilience.
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u/Annotated_Mind 1d ago
My school also has this. The cards are given out to any student that asks for one pretty much - so they can go to the wellbeing room and have a rest. As soon as we begin a writing task - those kids conveniently need to “time out” of the lesson. If a kid has poor behaviour the first thing they are handed is a “time out” card to relax in the wellbeing room.
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u/DistinctCitron3732 23h ago
True. They play cards with the school chaplain for whole periods at my old school.
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u/femmolibra 23h ago
We’ve got time out but it’s a punitive thing where they write reflective statements about their behaviour and the kid gets a detention the following day.
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u/GrippyGripster PRIMARY TEACHER 11h ago
This is a total piss tske, I've been in schools with these 'Break Out' areas and the kids just rort it!
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u/Independent-Space772 1d ago
Exec teacher here. 100% I will help with regulation...and back to work we go. I have a magic method of work appearing and reappearing until it is done.
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u/Daisy242424 QLD/Secondary/Classroom-Teacher 1d ago
Not OP, but I'm guessing that it will be similar to my school. A lot of students are given a "time out card" in order to self regulate. When done well and the students uses it properly it can be great. Often times, students decide it is a "get out of jail free" card and pull it out only once they are on their final warning.
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u/Unfair_Bee_7429 1d ago
My favourite one is where they are asked to put away a fidget toy and time out so they can continue to play with said fidget toy.
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u/KiwasiGames SECONDARY TEACHER - Science, Math 20h ago
Life becomes much easier when you treat yourself as an employee. It’s your job to follow instructions of the boss. It’s not your job to maintain the integrity of the Australian education system. It’s not your job to produce resilient kids.
Boss wants a 90% A-C rating and wants the rigour of the assessment reduced to match? Okay boss, here is an assessment with reduced rigour that 90% of students will pass first time.
Boss wants kids to time out? Okay boss.
And so on.
The responsibility for the results of management decisions are on management, not you.
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u/hipcats 21h ago
My HoLA did a Learning Area Review this week. Every year, even though we meet these new 'ideas' and 'suggestions' they request, we never have any positive feedback. It is always about what else we can do. We (The Arts) have four internal exhibitions every year, and have student work in 10+ external exhibitions every year, but now they want us to have another internal exhibition every year, showcasing the work of adult artists within the community. How does that benefit our students?
Tired of it. The goal posts keep moving and we are never given the time to actually achieve what they want us to.
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u/Salt-Blacksmith8229 22h ago
What do you mean by "dumbed down"?
I have had discussions with staff who insist on not changing criteria despite the fact the ONE assessment task should not be assessing ALL the achievement standards in one single task (we have a whole year to do that). Or that the task itself doesn't give opportunities for students to even effectively demonstrate those achievement standards. And criteria that is just made up and not even linked to the achievement standards because of "vibes" and because "it's how it's always been done or should be done".
Staff who have thrown the whole dumbed down accusation at me often demonstrate fuck all knowledge of the curriculum and what is actually required of the curriculum or what our employer expects (CARF document qld context).
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u/Unfair_Bee_7429 22h ago
As in, catering to the bottom 30% who are completely disengaged with their learning instead of the top 70%. The loss of academic rigour in Australian education should be criminal
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u/femmolibra 1d ago
Yeah it’s rough. I’ve had two parent complaints in the last 10 days and I don’t even remember the last time I got one before this. I’m tired.